


Holiday Rent Boy

by tigersilver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Professors, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26482600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: BIGCOC is coming, just ten days away, and poor Malfoy is in a tizzy to end all tizzies. Fortunately Harry plans to do something about that before the poor wanker accidentally expires from stress.Circa 2012. This is a gift fic for these lovely people, for the holidays and the awesomesauce they really, really are: monster_o_love , groolover , hidders (for all you do for so very many, I thank you!), a_execution , lonewhiterose , ineffably_roma , ryokoblue (Happy Birthday!), kitty_fic (as you're awesome), mayfly_78 (you know why, yes? Yes!), the wonderful khasael and the most darling dysonrules. Bows to Sir Pterry, as always, for adding to the language and enriching it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [groolover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/groolover/gifts), [Hidders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hidders/gifts), [khasael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/khasael/gifts), [dysonrules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dysonrules/gifts), [ryokoblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryokoblue/gifts), [ineffably_roma (Romaine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romaine/gifts), [kitty_fic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_fic/gifts), [lonewhiterose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonewhiterose/gifts).



"It appears I am yours, Malfoy, officially."

Harry Potter smirked festively, adjusted his all-concealing dark velvet robes and proceeded to lounge all over the neat corner of his fellow Hogwarts prof's desk blotter with a fine air of holiday _bonhomie,_ effectively possessing himself of half the available surface area.

Malfoy cringed, fearing for his ruffled papers, endangered by the Golden One's arse.

"For the taking, as it were," Harry went on merrily, unperturbed by Draco's aborted attempt at shoving him off the shiny surface. "Use of, seasonally. Or rather, to be more exact, I'm to be officially in charge of making your daily life joyful and merry this lovely holiday season, so get yourself accustomed as of now, my fine old prat. McGonagall hath spoken: I'm your holiday rent boy, Malfoy—your personal Christmas elf—on call, day or night."

Draco Malfoy—thirty, divorced father of one, currently unattached and the Charms Professor at Hogwarts and a damned fine one, too, thanks so much—instantly clutched his throbbing sinuses with the fingers of one long, elegant hand, massaging them frantically.

"Merlin, _no_! Tell me she didn't, Potter! Tell me you lie?" he pleaded pathetically.

"She did, actually," Harry replied equably, still all sunny, smarmy smiles. "Problem?" he added chirpily, and crossed his legs at the ankles, swinging them jauntily. Little bells rang their tiny, tinny hearts out with it. Malfoy flinched.

Harry took the opportunity to glance down at the desk's contents with some small curiosity, eyes bright. They were many and assorted, and fiddly withal, and who knew Wizarding ink came in that peculiar colour of pure octarine?

"Malfoy?"

Evidently Malfoy did, and used it, too, judging by the coruscating notes scribbled across the cover page of his much-vaunted Conference of Charmers [COC, for short, an acronym that always gave Harry and the other staff a giggle] presentation. The Staff Room had heard all about this Conference, ad nauseum.

"Malfoy, are you with me, here?"

"Shut it, Potter," Malfoy snapped. "I'm trying to remember if I did...if I did?"

"Did what, Malfoy?"

Harry grinned, a small private one, just to himself. Leave it to the git to use nearly impossible ink to mark up his nearly _History of Hogwarts-_ length presentation.

"Oooh! I _did_!" Malfoy inhaled sharply, the vaguely troubled expression on his wan and weary features transforming into sheer foul temper. He stared off into the middle distance, a fixed expression on his handsome, pointy face, one that spoke of great rage, barely suppressed. "Yes, I did; I remember it clearly now. I most specifically advised Headmistress I was not participating in this—this _idiocy_ this year, that's all! How she could!" Malfoy ranted quietly. "She knows how it is right now, damn her. I've no effing time left to me, Potter! It's in bloody ten days, BIGCOC! _Ten_!"

Harry shrugged amiably, waving both hands in the air in a vague gesture of 'Fancy that!' and smiling kindly. He visibly radiated peace and goodwill-towards-all-Wizards, at least to Malfoy's jaundiced view, but not the slightest smidgeon of good sense or common courtesy.

"No idea, Malfoy," he allowed genially. "But she has and I'm, er, _it._ So to speak."

"Right," Draco said softly. "What a fucking nightmare."

The fingers pressing into the skin between his pale, sardonically arched brows dug in briefly, turning white from the pressure. Then they moved slowly over to one temple, where a vein visibly pulsed blue under thin layer of flesh. He caressed that area much more gently and Harry's gaze automatically followed the movement. Malfoy, of course, didn't notice; sod him.

"Why, thanks."

Or so Harry concluded, his merry smile hardening ever so slightly and turning briefly sour.

"Look here," Malfoy spoke up, having sucked in a huff of irked air abruptly, and was ever so acidly polite again his very speech was brittle with it. "Potter. I've no time for this cheery 'happy holidays' shite, Potter—and _you_ , of all the people here at Hogwarts, know that for damned fact! _Everyone_ knows it—or should. The Biennial International Galapagos Conference of Charmers coming up right on schedule, first week of January, and I'm buggered blue if I don't have this paper completely prepared and ready to properly present—and I've all the annotations yet, and the completed biblio and that's not even counting the speech I've yet to write!"

"Hmm," Harry hummed, still unruffled. "Really."

Silence fell for a long moment while Malfoy closed his fine grey eyes in pent-up frustration and Harry cocked his head, bird-like, to regard him.

"Huh."

Then he waved a free hand at Malfoy's tidy piles of close-written parchment, thick, dust-laden texts and his vast assortment of 'special' quills, coloured impossible inks and desktop miscellany and they all disappeared into the thin air of Malfoy's neat study.

"That's rough, Malfoy," he consoled his fellow prof blithely, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I feel for you, I do. Been there, done that, just very recently. But, hey! Here we go—a cheery holiday tea awaits us! Man up, old chap—first things first. You must feed the creative fires, clearly."

"Potter!" Malfoy roared, opening his eyes wide at the whisper of paper Vanishing and then blinking balefully at the sudden blankness that had but a moment before contained a year's worth of difficult work. His desk was all at once but a barren wasteland of polished mahogany, with nary a scrap of stray parchment nor scribbled-on Wizardex card in sight. Which was bad enough, Draco fumed, but worst of all…

"What in the bleeding _fuck_ , Potter?" he blustered, shoving his desk chair back and half rising dramatically. He stuck a finger out to jab at his most unwelcome visitor and Harry thoughtfully scooted back a few inches more on the bared, blotterless wood, well out of range.

"Er, yes?"

" _That_ was the solid platinum inkwell m'mother gave me you just sent off to nowhere in particular—bloody well bring it back! It's monogrammed, damn your eyes! Which means it's got my initials carved all over it, if you don't happen to know what _that_ means!"

"I do, actually." Harry nodded agreeably at that. "As it happens."

"Oh, shut it! It means it's _mine_ , arsewipe, and consequently precious to _me_. _Oi_ , Potter! Put my stuff back where you found it, damn you—before I have to take steps to hex you bollockless!"

"Oh, shush, Malfoy. Don't burst a blood vessel. All's well."

Harry grinned at his irate co-worker and turned to glance again at the cleared-off surface, flapping that same seemingly innocuous hand once more, oh, so casually,

"It's fine, just Vanished momentarily," he chuckled, in an excess of inexplicable holiday-induced good humour. "Vanished, Malfoy, not destroyed." Draco's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he observed the careless gesture, his lips so tightly pressed together they seemed a seamless line of anger. "It'll all be restored soon enough, not to worry. But, tea—first and foremost. You need sustenance, grumpyboots."

"Hah!" Draco snorted, anger finally venting just as steam did from an overheated kettle. "Fuck this tea idea with a sharp, pointy stick! You'd be a grumpyboots too, Potter, if you were in my shoes!"

"My shoes, Draco, are quite pointy at the moment," Harry replied, in a way that made no sense at all to his impatient audience of one. "And belled in silver, for easy reference. See?" He lifed his feet merrily, jingling them. "You'll always know where I am; isn't that lovely?"

"No! It's not! Oh, for the love of all that's holy, Potter, can't you please just take yourself off? Consider me cheered, do, and go. Away!"

"Negatory," Harry grinned. "No can do, sorry. Here we go! Just coming. Sorry for the delay."

The next second, the polished wood was clad tastefully in a snowy cloth and set with a practical sort of low tea; biscuits, scones, pots of butter, cream, preserves and so on, a smattering of smoked fish and mustards, a few wedges of cheese, plus a tiny carafe of Ogden's Finest, accompanied by two miniature crystal goblets. The whole array sparkled and twinkled evilly, garnished with shiny green tinsel and a centerpiece comprised of gathered silver bells and cinnamon-scented pine cones.

"What in Merlin—?" Malfoy exclaimed, flinching back. "I don't want that! Take it away, Potter."

"No. And would you be willing to get the hell over yourself and your snit for, say, ten minutes or so?" Harry inquired of him cheerily, entirely unfazed by the unrelenting and likely patented Malfoy glower. He shifted his position, sliding over to make room for the small feast. "And perhaps move on from these small things that annoy and irk you so much? In my opinion, you see, my dear Malfoy, you allow common, everyday stressors far too much control over your every littlest action. You'll lose all your pretty hair at this sorry rate and that'll be a blooming pity, mate, it will. One of your finer features, your hair. Leastways, _I_ always thought so."

" _Potter_!" Malfoy's hands clenched into business-like fists, as they always did when Harry brought up the subject of his hair. Which was currently short up the back, long in the front and magically gelled to rise in graceful widow's peaks 'round his sculpted cheekbones and long, sharp face. "Shut up about my hair, Potter! Look to yours, you! You walking, talking crow's nest!"

Quite becoming, his hair. Draco had determined this upon reflection (literal, in a mirror) when he chose to return to the style of his late boyhood. Left him looking a full ten years younger and fanciable enough to pull most anyone he chose—not that Hogwarts had anyone decent to pull, but then he wasn't quite doddery yet, was he? And Town was only a hop, skip and Apparation away.

"Silly wanker," Harry was chuckling at him, going on despite the sound of audible grinding emanating from the hidden hinges of Draco's angular jawbone. The man worked it like a stallion on a lunge line, all rolling whites of eyes and high-stepping fury,much to the admiration of all who knew him. No other Prof at Hogwarts could grind quite the same way he could. It was an inspiring thing...as well as terrifying for the Fourth Years. Harry noted the noise and quickly stopped his chuckles. "Erm, just kidding with you. Teasing, like. Really."

"Merlin! I should hope so, Potter." Malfoy didn't cease an instant with the heavy-duty glare fest, but he did ease back into his seat uneasily. Potter, he noticed, seemed to take that move for encouragement to go on with this nonsense. "And don't take that for invitation to stay, either, because it isn't. Go away. Please. I'm busy."

"Nope. I've watched you, you see," Harry admitted, his body bending in a matey, confidential manner, "recently, running hither and yon, to-and-fro, all this last month or so—all mental, all the time, Draco, when all you really need do is calm the Hades down for half a tick and sort the one thing at the one time. Just the one. Like tea, for example," he added, snickering gently, eyes darting to the tidy little spread beside him. "It's time for it, so have your tea with me, git, as it's already here before you—and _do_ _not dare_ be at all tetchy with me for doing my appropriate duty by you, Draco. It's half four already. You must be famished. No—you _are_ famished. I can tell—you're being far more of an uppity arse than usual."

"I don't want tea, Potter," Draco stated baldly, through teeth that were—oh, yes, they were—clamped tight enough together to actually shatter. With visible effort he sent a thin-lipped attempt at a polite grimace Harry's way, nodding sharply to emphasis this unequivocal statement.

Harry only waited patiently and watched him, expression utterly calm and open, though a wry smile lurked on the corner of his mouth. Draco, ever verbose under pressure, did not disappoint.

"I don't want _anything_ , really," he enunciated, apparently under the impression Harry would willingly listen to him if he just repeated himself sufficient times in a very brief period, "except perhaps the blessed opportunity to complete my work in relative peace, with no unnecessary interruptions. Tea would be one of those, Potter: unnecessary, completely. Really. Thank you, old arse, for your appalling thoughtfulness, but no thank you, all the same. I must at least polish off a substantial part of my speech by the end of this afternoon and I've absolutely no time available for anything superfluous, not at this rate. If I did, I'd be up in the Staff Room with the rest of you lot, Potter, aimlessly milling about and stuffing my face with Mrs. Weasley's brandied fruitcake like the veriest starveling—believe me. Her fruitcake is superb-better than elf-made. But, as you see, I am not. Can not. Now, please—take yourself off like a good fellow. Leave me alone, if you would be so kind, so I can attempt to function."

"Draco," Harry commented serenely, finally pouring out. The lurking smile grew yet larger under Malfoy's beetle-browed stare. "Hate to say it, but you're not being very cooperative; not right now, at least. I'm only attempting to complete _my_ assigned work—as your personal holiday rent boy. That includes catering to your basic needs if you don't do it for yourself, wanker. You require food; you need rest. You need, in a word, to _relax_."

"Again," Draco bit out, every syllable severely clipped, "there is very limited time in my schedule, Potter, and I must make use of each moment of it. This last term was more than usually hectic and the upcoming presentation will make or break me, professionally. You do know how it is, don't you? Publish or perish, Potter? Surely you remember that phrase from last year? I think the Board of Governors must have repeated it ten times over when they first took me on, along with 'Death Eater' and 'that demanding old bitch, McGonagall'. Well! It's engraved in my brain now, that credo, Potter, and I must follow through or risk being summarily terminated. As I'm not employed here for shites-and-giggles, you must excuse me if I attempt to retain my job."

"Yes, of course, Malfoy, and I was just in that same situation, last year," Harry replied instantly, frowning momentarily,and likely at his own wretched memories of achieving full tenure, till that eerily calm smile he'd been wearing came creeping back on cat's paws and took up residence on his quirked lips.

"You were not, Potter!" Draco protested, sitting up straight as a board. "They'd never fire the fucking Saviour and you know it! You're a damn sure thing, Potter; nothing to worry yourself over, sod you!"

"Terrible, it is," Harry continued on meditatively, apparently turning selectively deaf in process. "Very nasty of them, requiring that—most tiring, too. I remember being always exhausted. But… you'll get through it, Draco, just as I did. I've every faith in your phenomenal persistence, git. Ah, here you are!" he exclaimed with great false cheer, the lingering, weird smile now fully plastered across his blandly schooled features and spreading like some sort of icky lichen. "Two sugars and a squeeze of lemon, right?"

Despite himself, Malfoy absentmindedly took the teacup as it was thrust upon him, frowning still with every facial muscle available to the task.

"Pot- _ter_ ," he said quietly, the boiling pressure building up in those two simple syllables. " _Pot-ter_."

"Biscuit with that, Draco?" Harry asked, undaunted. "Very fresh, they are. Just baked."

"It's not the same, Potter." Malfoy, clearly distracted and following some internal express train of thought of his very own, unrelated to tea, swallowed a dainty gulp of his Darjeeling and fixed Harry with a searching X-ray gaze. "Not in any way. _You_ have an advantage in DADA that I do not, in Charms. _You_ have practical experience in Defense, Potter—droves of it. _You_ have the even greater advantage of being the one who sodding saved us all from unspeakable misery. _I_ , however, do not have any of these positives at my disposal. And Flitwick, by the by, for all that he's a silly old coot and likely demented, is and was an absofuckinglutely amazing Charmer. Did you know he published regularly while he was teaching here and the Board just adored the pants off him, all through the damned war?"

"No, really?" Harry shook his head in wonder. "Fancy!"

"Now, me?" Draco asked of him, rhetorically. "I've had the very devil of a time, Potter, perfecting modifications to that stupid, simple-as-Simon 'Notice Me Not' the Aurors commissioned in September. It took ages longer than it should've, for no good reason other than I was constantly interrupted by schoolwork! And then, as a crowning indignity, the bleeding Board requires I produce a new Charm or a suitably creative variation on an old one every six months, like bloody clockwork, per my contract. The next of which is due, you realise, on the thirtieth of this month. I am, in a word, fucked."

"Uh-huh," Harry nodded. "Go on, Malfoy. I'm listening, I am. Really."

Draco huffed.

"You see, Potter, it's all a bit much at the moment, what with the BIGCOC coming up—which is my personal launch into the fields of International Charming, fuck it, and crucially important in the long run, both for Hogwart's scholarly rep and my own academic future. So, yes, _really_ , Potter—I'm bleeding swamped here. I _am_ , no kidding. And thus I ask of you, very kindly, to go away, please, like the very good berk you are purported to be by both the Press and the sodding masses. I've not a spare second to playact house elf games with you, git—not _now_ , not tomorrow, not for the next ten days. This is _not_ some stupid Muggle film, you know. There is no reprieve—no last-minute stay of execution. No magical out."

"Er, another biscuit?" Harry asked sweetly, offering the plate of them by waving it under Malfoy's nose, fragrant with buttery steam and still tangibly warm from the elves' ovens. "Or a scone, perhaps? They're currant, with slivered almonds. Do take one—you'll be needing some carbs, methinks, for energy. Hermione always swears by them, really. Buck you right up, carbs will."

"Thank you," Draco replied politely, taking one up carelessly, but he was still very much on the same rutted track, as he then proceeded to repeat what he'd just said, albeit in slightly different verbiage.

"You're very welcome, Malfoy."

Harry, being the noticing type, couldn't help but hear the faint note of rising hysteria as Malfoy launched without delay into Diatribe Number Two—or was it Three? He shrugged, not really worried over it, and returned to his chosen task of being cheery, smiling widely at Malfoy's expressive face and flying hands, and sipping his own tea with equanimity.

"Much obliged, to be sure," Malfoy was saying, doggedly. " _But._ I am telling you, Potter, straight out, that in less than ten short days I must polish off this buggering Conference presentation, plus the bloody speech and all the addendums that accompany it, and be ready to present it at some touristy hotel on some turtle-infested island in the middle of effing Nowheresville and there's _still_ what I owe the Governors for last quarter and now you say Headmistress McGonagall's pulling this 'Happy Holidays!" crap on all of us, and especially _me_ , and _you_ , Potter, on top of all the other like a bleeding dungbomb exploding—I swear she's out to murder me, Potter, I do so swear— and I just don't have a spare moment to frolic about with the likes of you making merry right now—not this year, at least. Not to oblige _you_ , Potty— _not_ to fulfill some pointless requirement of the Headmistress, bless her old maidish heart, and _not_ to be in any offensive or non-participatory— _but_! Maybe next—"

"No, _really_ , Malfoy," Harry took the opportunity to interrupt his fellow professor mid-flow, still practically wreathed in patient, kind, good-natured grins, his green eyes glowing like the little faerie lights Malfoy had grudgingly Charmed on the twenty-five foot decorated evergreen in the Staff Room, " _you_ don't have to lift a single pinkie finger to reciprocate, believe me—and I promise faithfully not to get in your way, either, when you're slaving away over your evil presentation, the Charm that's due and the rest of it. Well…not too, too much, at least. There's the Yule Dinner Dance tomorrow, naturally, which must be attended, but we can likely duck out of that early—don't much care for dancing myself, actual—"

"You're mad, Potter!" Draco snorted, newly flushed with rising temper. "Starkers! Raving! As if I have time for _that_ nonsense when I don't even have time to take tea like a civilized person? What are you _thinking_ , man? _Are_ you thinking?"

Incensed, he gulped down the remaining half of his cup of Darjeeling and polished off his scone dry, chewing furiously.

"Um, no," Harry allowed. "Er, I mean, yes."

"Salazar!" Malfoy added, the curse muffled by his next strangled swallow. "You're impossible! Always, always impossible, Potter! I've not time for this! Nor that!"

"Of course you don't, Malfoy," Harry said peaceably, hastily pouring out more tea and offering it up. "There's no time left for you, Draco—and, if it helps you, just continue to tell yourself this is all just a very bad dream you're having, alright? Carry on with the noshing, though, won't you, at least till you believe you've woken up? Do you good."

"Prick!" Malfoy growled indistinctly through a second scone he'd just slathered with lemon curd and half a pot's worth of lush Devonshire cream. "You're a pain in my bum, Potty! Don't you dare patronize me!"

"Of course I am," Harry agreed, nodding happily and taking a shortbread square for himself. "Haven't I always been, Draco?"

"Mmm," his companion allowed, lips twitching mightily in an effort not to return Harry's cheeky smile. "Yes—indubitably, Potter. And still are, wanker—likely always be, though no one but _me_ seems to realize it. Things don't change much, not with you."

"No…they don't, do they?" Harry twinkled, and helpfully pushed the apricot preserves in Malfoy's direction.

" _No_. Oh! Ta, Potter."

This sweeping statement was far truer than Draco would actually ever admit, but Potter clearly had no inkling of what his co-worker and ancient acquaintance really meant by it, so all was safe and well on the surface. Draco concentrated on gulping his tea down instead, licking his lips nervously, increasingly eager to remove Potter from the room, posthaste. That damned speech—that stupid Charm—and then McGonagall! The bloody nerve of the old biddy, when she knew _she_ was both the front-line instrument of measure for the Governor's requirements _and_ the sounding board for Draco's continued professional success at that bloody Conference! Tossing Potter into the bleeding tangle was just not on—and certainly not ten days before C-Day, when Draco was but a hair's breadth from hurdling triumphantly over yet another obstacle. He didn't need the confusion Potter caused in his nervous system…the temptation that blue-deviled him, either. Harry Potter had bloody sparkled brilliantly lately, bobbing about the Staff room and Great Hall like an excited little kid over the planned Hogwarts festivities, and Draco knew for a fact the juvenile git adored Christmas and all its trappings with every ounce of his poor orphaned little soul.

He'd rather wished he'd had the time to join in, or even devise some sort of appropriate treat for the barmy-brained one, but no…he'd no time left for that, not now. Likely Potter would just be confused by any small gesture on his part, in any road.

Of course, none of the mental quandary engendered by on-again, off-again potential gift-giving had helped Draco concentrate in any way, shape or form on the tasks he simply had to accomplish. In fact, his silly fancies had distracted him so thoroughly from his strict agenda earlier in the month he'd lost valuable time and now had to shut himself solidly away from the whole irritating lot of it.

Bah and humbug! _Sod_ Potter! was Draco's learned opinion, had anyone asked it of him, right then.

"Still, Draco…"

Harry wasn't asking, though. Nor would he ever even care, but his quiet tenor was made all of soothing, mellow notes, so much so it practically stroked Draco's hair back off his beetled brow of its own ruddy volition, like a warm, welcome hand extended in need. Draco nearly closed his eyes under the calming cloud of it, sighing happily—the hurricane force of Harry Potter's infamous 'care' was a formidable power—but he managed to keep them pried open out of an equally quite strong sense of self-preservation. He'd not cracked yet; not once in a decade, no matter how tempted.

Harry remained perched on his desk yet, like a bloody bump on an antique, heirloom, highly polished log, and was at the moment watching Draco's throat move through every swallow with all the narrow-eyed notice of a hawk tracking an unwary rodent, and swaying ever so slightly nearer Draco by meticulously tiny degrees. Draco noticed randomly that Potter was indeed wearing pointy elf shoes, in Slytherin green. They had tiny silver bells on their tips, which the git must've silenced to sneak up on him, all unawares, bearing insidious tea trays.

The silly shoes were swinging jauntily, back and forth, as Potter sipped and nibbled. This carefree image was, for whatever reason, utterly infuriating to Draco.

"You know…" Harry said.

Draco blinked in some confusion, peering, as Harry was also—and he could quite possibly be going round the twist from sheer stress-and-strain— bedecked in a red shirt under his prof's robes. A red satin shirt that was fitted quite snugly across his chest and teeming with the representations of green-and-silver mistletoe balls, bouncing merrily through the field of vermillion.

"You mustn't fuss to this extent over what's due and when," Potter counseled him kindly, and reached out a crumb-laden set of fingers to pat Draco's shoulder in a matey sort of manner. "Draco, listen—you really shouldn't. I won't be in your way, I swear, upon my honour. And remember, too, it's strictly my call, how I go about inducing your state of holiday merriment," he went on, deftly topping off his fellow professor's cup yet again and waving the biscuit plate like a bloody holiday banner. Petits fours popped up upon it chased silver surface like little mushrooms. Draco grabbed four in desperation.

"Relax—it'll be painless, trust me," Harry reassured him earnestly. "You won't feel a thing…probably. Er—knowing _you_ , git. Merlin knows I've tried before."

Harry's cheery mask slipped for a blink, revealing a somewhat disappointed grimace, and was then firmly pinned back in place. He smiled steadily and nodded at Draco in an encouraging fashion.

"'Inducing my merriment'," Draco sneered—but halfheartedly, as the accumulated tea at last did its usual hearty magic, soothing built-up tension and strengthening shattered nerves. As did the usual banter between them, which felt comfortably familiar—and safe.

_Safe_ , Draco had decided long ago, was not such a bad thing, all 'round.

"Huh," he snorted aloud. "I'll believe _that_ when I see it, Potter, as it's not going to happen. Besides, I've always been under the distinct impression you induced something else from me, all these many years—something very far from merriment!"

"Really, now?" Harry raised his brows in gentle inquiry. "Hmmm. I do hope you're over that now, Draco. Ancient history, right? Oh, ah? All done there? Care for a wee nip to settle your stomach, perhaps?"

"Urrgh! Pot- _ter_!"

Draco shook his hair back from his frowning forehead, increasing the visibility of his damned near perpetual scowl. Funny, that. He was never normally this ill-tempered these days…well, not unless that git Potter was scampering about in his immediate vicinity. Harry brought out the worst in him and Draco realized that.

Then again, he couldn't help himself. Scowling at Potter's antics was vastly preferable to any other impulsive action on his part, by far.

"Do you never give up?" he demanded rhetorically, still willing to give it the old Slytherin one-two, knife-in-the-back try for victory. Potter grinned unrepentantly at him and waved the carafe.

"Fine!" Draco snarled. "Don't mind if I do, Potter," he went on, angrily chomping down the last of his fourth biscuit and chasing it with the dregs of the third or fourth cup of tea. "Rather—I suppose I must, right? Or you won't budge your bum off my desk and leave me in peace, _ever_."

"Too right, Draco. That's the ticket," Harry chuckled. "Got it in one. M'not going anywhere till I'm fully satisfied you're all taken care of—fed, watered and victualled. Always did say you were sharp as a tack, despite the improbable hair colour."

He handed over the tiny goblet brimming with Ogden's and raised his own in a flourish and another vacuous helping of smarmy smiles. Draco, mellowed, merely contented himself with increasing the intensity of his habitual glare and snorting softly.

"So…" Harry raised his itty-bitty elf-sized glass on high. "Here's to prying the bloody Board off your back _and_ having your presentation all sorted, Draco—in ten days or less. Happy Christmas, mate! Cheers!" Harry offered happily, toasting.

"Too right," Draco sighed discontentedly, giving in to the inevitable and tossing back his shot. He allowed a hand to come to rest on his lean belly, rubbed its recent fullness without thinking, and Harry scooted his arse forward, observing keenly.

"What?" Harry wanted to know. "Draco? Something wrong?"

"I wish," Malfoy added forlornly, averting his eyes when the black hair bobbed too close to his nose and examining his waistcoat buttons with ferociously anxious scowl. "It was over with, this Conference. Though it seems very unlikely, right now. And bloody Headmistress, Potter! The nerve! What have I done to _her_ lately?"

"No clue. Um…does it hurt, Draco—your stomach?" Harry asked, swooping even closer like a small peregrine falcon, a look of deep concern overtaking the remnants of the barmy holiday cheer. "Is it the stress affecting your digestion? I've a Potion for that from Madame—or there's the digestives, right here."

"No, no…" Malfoy heaved a sigh and settled back into his swivelly chair with a defeated slump. The Ogden's was helping along the tea's good beginnings, finally. Things were grey and dreary, yes, but perhaps marginally less dreary than they had been. Come to think of it…

"Not that, Potter. Or not so much, not right now. It's just can't remember when I last ate anything solid, that's all. Er—thanks for this, Potter." Draco nodded reluctantly at the now demolished tea tray, and Harry bobbed his dark head in placid acknowledgement, all too quickly returned to that irritating plastic grin of his.

"Pleasure, prat," Harry replied, clearly relieved. "I _am_ your personal rent boy for the holiday, remember? It's all part of the service, feeding your lonesome gut…amongst my other duties. They are legion, you know—or perhaps you don't, but no worries. I'll help you."

Draco allowed a tiny grin to twist his lips and raised his weary, sleep-deprived gaze to meet Harry's twinkling emerald one. He seemed to miss any subtext entirely, though—an indication of his extreme fatigue, perhaps, his companion concluded—or perhaps it was his solid brick wall of non-belief erected against holiday miracles.

A frown crossed over Harry's face, quick as lightning. Draco, catching it out of the corner of his eye, heaved another great sigh, knowing Harry's visit was likely at a close. He hadn't solicited it, of course-would never-but it had been...pleasant to have company, all the same. But Draco was not, and had never been, one who ws driven to begged for the attention of Potter-or so he'd maintain, even under Veritaserum, these days. He simply didn't require that Hogwarts crowning jewel, it's plebeian Prince, pat him any attention at all.  
He could do without and prosper just beautifully, thanks so much. Had, for a long decade. Would, for the foreseeable future.

No, he mused, anything that he'd achieved recently had been through sheer, concentrated effort, nothing else—with his nose strictly glued to business. Potter had been his _deus ex machina_ , once, but he knew well enough to never expect that to happen again.

"How I would have gagged to hear you admit such a thing years ago, Potter," he said at last, a wry little chuckle escaping him involuntarily. "But still—this is enough, really." Draco waved the hand that been rubbing his achy abdomen at the cluttered desktop, Harry's elf shoes and the distracting red satin shirt. "More than. You've done all you can for me, truly. I _am_ frantic and decidedly not in the holiday spirit, I admit, but I do appreciate your efforts, such as they are. You may trot off now and inform Headmistress you've attempted your noble Gryffindor best to redeem my unseasonably dire arse."

But Harry shook his head, ever so slowly, in the negative.

"Oh, no, no, no. I don't think so…Draco."

With a quick motion, he threw the last of his dram of Ogden's down his gullet and hopped off the edge of the desk with alacrity. A third meaningful wiggled of his fingers and a wandless incantation restored all the parchment piles and desk paraphernalia to their proper places, or nearly so.

"Not at all," Harry continued, his green eyes glittering feverishly. "Draco, my dear old twat, this doesn't stop with just tea. You'll need a great deal more cheery good wishes and holiday spirit lavished upon you before I'm through to _my_ satisfaction, at least. Count on it-bloody take it to Gringott's. I'm here to stay for the bloody duration, I am. All twelve days of it—and the nights, naturally. I'm talking endurance, Malfoy. Don't try and stop me, either."

"Potter, really," Draco shook his head dolefully. "Completely unnecessary, I assure you. Do give this notion up, at once. Go now. Your good work is done, here—and I must keep on. I've expected to."

Harry cocked his chin and quite seriously regarded the conundrum that was Malfoy, Draco.

The man only stared at him, clearly expecting him to go, waving an elegant paw, family pinkie ring gleaming, casually shooing Harry away. But he did this with a great deal less tension exhibited than when he'd first witnessed his old rival's annoying intrusion into his private sanctum.

Draco's shoulders, Harry noticed, though yet heavy with the intangible burden of great responsibilities, were somehow set straighter and squared properly again. His poetically handsome brow, though still pale with exhaustion, no longer sported the fine lines anxiety had laid on. And his grey eyes were clear once more, though still bloodshot and heavy in the lids—a result his smirking companion was quite proud of having had something positive to do with, though he breathed not a word about that to his victim—er, _client_.

Harry allowed his lips to quirk into a charming, soppy sort of smile, the sort he saved for his children and the Weasleys. Draco Malfoy, marshmallow wrapped in tensile steel, jerked into an terribly attentive pose and smiled helplessly in return, instantly fascinated. He gestured at the desk which had held the tea things and the sparkling goblet he still clutched.

"It's really _not_ necessary," he babbled, for want of something to say,, even though he was under the strong impression they'd both felt his last few words were rather depressingly final and the interlude all but ended, "all this effort on your part, Potter, and you _should_ tell McGonagall exactly that, from me."  
He grimaced, an odd mix of self-deprecation and fond ire.  
"She knows full well what I have before me this Christmas break…and that it's not reasonable _at all_ to ask you to waste your precious time on me, Potter. There's your pal, Hagrid, for one, if you've been given a quota of happy customers to meet or some such. I'm sure _he'd_ love for you to be appointed _his_ personal Holiday elf this season—"

"Um. _Rent boy_ , Draco," Harry interjected, the soppy sliding into evil leering in a blink of an eye. "Holiday-themed version, that is. And pardon me, but I'd rather _not_ be Hagrid's, least not in that particular capacity. Nor anyone else's. Er…when did you last sleep properly, by the by? Draco? You seem a bit…well. _Of_ f."

"Whatever, Potter," Draco shrugged, apparently no longer so concerned about the niceties of terminology or whatever other distracting subjects Potter was going on about. He'd managed to successfully move past the red satin mistletoe shirt and the curly-tipped shoes, after all. What was the term 'rent boy', anyway, but a further distraction in his already discombobulated state?

And Potter never would've meant it _that_ way—Draco was positive of _that_.

"In any case, there's the oaf you can flutter about, doling out candy canes and peppermint, and then there's Sinistra—dry old stick _she_ is—and that madwoman Trelawney, yet. In fact, there's a whole slew of people right here in Hogwarts who'd absolutely adore having the resident Golden Boy at their beck-and-call, I'm certain, including your doting ex-Head of House, the bloody Headmistress. Just not _me_ , not _now_. I've enough on my plate without _you_ up my nose, Potty, wearing those barmy elf shoes and that mistletoe-covered red abomination you call garb, and I really can't take the time to celebrate the Yule or Christmas properly this year—as I've said now, what? Three times? The four?"

"Awww," Harry grinned, "you noticed, then, Draco. Very good— _very_ good," he purred. "There's still hope for you yet. But, not to worry, my gittish friend," he went on, softly, hands busily restoring Draco's desktop to rights.

He smiled down at the contested platinum inkwell with which Narcissa Malfoy had gifted her only and much-beloved son, stroking a careful finger down the Art Deco curvature of slim wing and curled tail. All carved into a rampant dragon, the tiny thing was, and sporting tiny emerald eyes that blinked up sleepily at Harry, ever so sweetly.

"I don't mind it," Harry murmured, after a very small and likely meaningful pause, full of a great many implied things Draco missed altogether, though he did note he had to listen intently to hear Harry at all. "In fact, I asked specifically for you, this year, Draco. Which you should realize, if you'd been listening to a single word I've said, all these months now. But you're clearly not."

"You—you did?" Draco was very taken aback, judging by his eyebrows. "Me? Why me, specifically?"

Then he noticed Harry rearranging the things on his pristine desk in some sort of 'Potter-order' which, by very definition, was likely to prove incredibly infuriating later, when he attempted to lay hands on his references and working quills.

"I mean, what would you…? I don't—oh, here, enough! Do stop that, Potter! You'll leave marks on the patina."

"Oops!" Harry snatched his hand off the expensive inkwell quickly, and sent a tiny Charm at it to clear up the faint smudges of oil left by his fingertips. Which then promptly rebounded, stinging his wrist. He shook it out, grimacing. "Erm, sorry! Making things worse for you, aren't I? Didn't mean to," he apologized, returning all at once to his barmy uber-cheerful grinning. "Just trying to help you out, there—like the elves do, you know. All discreet like…Er."

"No matter." Draco grimaced at the sorry sight of Potter trying far too hard to fix things up and attempted another wildly unsuccessful polite grimace to deflect him. "Thanks, I'm sure, but don't bother yourself on my account, Potter. It's just buggerall to keep untarnished, that particular bibelot—all the intricate carving on it and then the settings for the gemstones," he babbled. Harry's eyes widened appreciably at this fount of information and he froze in place, wrist still raised and reddened.

"Very specific spell needed to tidy it up," Draco continued, rushing through his words heedlessly, "what with the platinum complicating the power of the emeralds. Don't know what Mum was thinking when she gave it to me—suppose the name, mayhap, or something like—"

"That it was a most beautiful piece of craftsmanship, likely, and brilliantly complicated, just like you, Draco." Harry chuckled, a rich, deep sound that sent his co-worker into instant—silent—bemusement. "Complex and rare. That would be why _I'd_ gift it to you, naturally, had I the good sense to do so…I'm just saying."

Harry's cheery smile had returned in full brilliance and was so wide now, Draco felt quite blinded by the balmily happy git. The words themselves were but a buzz in his ringing ears.

"I'm only...putting it out there for consideration…Draco."

Harry added the last with some hesitation, taking a deep, calming breath and swinging round to face Draco. And then he only stood there for a breathless moment, scant inches away, a vision in black velvet robes and that clingy red shiny shirt, with his curly, belled shoes jingling faintly, for the very first time.

Draco gulped, hard and dry. It was seldom he was afforded a chance to stare at Potter for this long, this blatantly. The words 'rent boy, holiday-themed' abruptly came back to haunt him.

Taunt him, rather.

"Well!" Harry exclaimed, having apparently arrived at some great, unexplained conclusion. "Not to dwell overmuch on the holiday spirit aspect, of course. I haven't even chosen your Christmas gift yet, Draco, so I really shouldn't even have brought that up—"

Likely Potter would be on his merry way now, Draco determined sulkily, having taken due pity on poor old pathetic Malfoy, left all to his lonesome arse this particular Christmas.

Draco winced miserably at the very idea of being pitied by Potter and resisted the overwhelming urge to shield his eyes. It didn't help to have Potter always distracting him from a little distance—which was his usual method of Draco-torture, as they both shared a similar class schedule and were thrown together at all hours, minding children—but up close and personal, in his own work area? That was simply too much! Potter needed to take himself off and leave Draco to his practical solitude.

_Draco_ needed a chance to breathe comfortably once more and take stock. He was under the Muggle gun, as Potter liked to say, incomprehensibly.

"Oh! Yes, well." Draco flushed uncomfortably and shifted in his seat, not realizing he was once again slowly rubbing a soothing palm across his churning midriff. "Er-no matter, Potter. And no need, either." He blinked, the fumes of the Ogden's finally clearing from his cobwebby brain…that must be what was so confusing about this whole sequence, right? The unreality of it all?

"Er—ah. But, Potter."


	2. Chapter 2

Something struck Draco, with the force of a Stunner. He opened his mouth again, determined to ignore it, but it tumbled out of lips loosened by whisky.

"Whatever did you mean, 'you chose me'? Why ever would you, Potter? We're hardly intimates, even now."

"Hrrhm."

Harry, who really couldn't seem to keep that stupid smirk off his irritating face, bent forward, looming jauntily over the still seated Draco, and placed his broad palms quite deliberately on the arms of his fellow professor's workaday office chair. He eased his trim form a few more telling inches farther forward, fetching up near enough to practically assault Draco's twitchy nose with the mingled scents of nutmeg and pine and the briefest whiff of wintry Scottish air, and showed all his lovely white teeth in a face-splitting grin to his blinking captive.

"Funny you should ask me that, finally."

"...Eh?"

Draco received a cocky little nod of the cleft chin all Heroes came equipped with and another infectious smile for his obvious bewilderment, which caused him in turn to bat his long, pale lashes even more rapidly.

"...What?"

"You _are_ slow today, aren't you…Draco?" Harry taunted, ever so sweetly-kindly. Draco could've hexed him, happily, for that. But some impulse impelled him _not_. "Very repetitious and long-winded about your little troubles but still thicker than a bloody brick overall, git. Somehow, for some reason, I know not why...I like that. In you. I do."

Draco reared back, literally. "Potter!"

His shocked surprise had little effect on his official 'holiday elf'. Who grinned, as was required by the merry...end even by Potters, who were not always merry by nature.

But still...Potter presented his chosen recipient a veritable wreath of a smile.

"Right, then. For the very last time, then, allow me to state this to you in words of a single syllable so that perhaps _you'll_ finally clue in, shall I? Rent. Boy. I _am_ your personal rent boy, Draco Malfoy, for all the twelve days of Christmas-and nights, don't forget. _Yours_. Now, do tell me—what comes to mind, my brilliant berk, when I say such words to you? Here, in your study, all alone, together—behind a locked and heavily warded door in a pretty much deserted castle. Anything in particular? Anything at all?"

"Ur."

Harry was so breathtakingly close now, his shirt buttons were nearly shoved into Draco's flared nostrils. He could smell the tantalizing remnants of baked goods—butter, vanilla, rum-and the heady fumes of Ogden's wafting across the tiny gap left between them. So very near was Potter's chest, his gently heaving ribs and taut nipples, Draco could almost feel his quite formidable heat like a cozy comforter, rolling in waves off those professorial velvet robes the untidy prat wore with such offhanded panache.

"Eh?"

And that horrid, awful shirt, with its scudding balls of sodding mistletoe, distracting Draco mightily from all that awaited...the work, the deadlines. Too, there was the faint silvery tinkle of bells from that ridiculous footwear Potter wore: a miniature carillon, teasing his ears.

Draco jerked his wandering attention back to the matter at hand: BIGCOC. Due in just the ten days. Charm for pestilential Board of Governor's: due in less than that. Signed, sealed and delivered, just as the gifts he'd Owled his faraway family, vacationing this year in Switzerland. Tory, his ex-wife, would surely maim for a shirt that fit as well as Potter's did.

"Potter!"

"Draco…" Potter cocked his chin again, contrarily, and gazed at Draco through slits of sultry green. "Are you listening, git?"

Sensing further and imminent danger, Draco sniffed nervously, his grey eyes widening to their fullest. With a gasp and a sudden anxiety-ridden start, he sent his desk chair hurdling a full foot and half backwards on its well-oiled wheels. But Potter jerked right along with it, hauled off his fancily clad feet by his own overly firm two-handed grip on the carven arms of Draco's chair.

" _Potter_!" Draco yelped, appalled. "Watch out!"

He dropped his empty goblet, which chimed merrily and rolled away across the subdued office carpeting.

"What in Salazar's bloody bollocks _are_ you—? I mean to say—! Well, _really_!"

Harry pitched forward all at once after describing an interesting toe-tip dance of balance, losing his precarious gravitational hold altogether, but he didn't seem to mind this happenstance much, if at all, as he was snorting with barely suppressed chuckles even as it happened—and grinning like a bleeding loon, damn his fascinating eyes, _still._ He landed with a plop on Malfoy's tensed thighs and stayed stuck there, even whilst Draco instantly wriggled furiously beneath him.

"Oi!" Draco exclaimed heatedly, gamely attempting to pry his fellow professor from his agitated lap. "Potter! I say—get _off_ , Potter! This isn't seemly! You can't just sit on me like that! I won't have it! What if someone comes? Get the hell up, will you? Remove yourself from my person this instant!"

He shoved, but not too hard. He pushed, but not nearly enough to dislodge a determined Hero.

"Um...no," Harry replied, with a smirk that had gone bloody transcendental with utter shite-eatingness, and proceeded to weave his wicked arms 'round Draco's tautly corded neck. "I can't, git. I _won't_ , rather. Took me long enough to be here as it is, what with you all manky-minded and out of it, like this. Now… _you,_ come here."

"Um!"

"Yes, closer…closer…just like that," Harry coaxed. "Good show!"

Harry used his fingers in a complicated way, never releasing his stranglehold upon Draco's neck, and tugged Draco's burning earlobes in such a manner to force his flushed victim's face into close personal proximity with his own smirking, self-satisfied one. All this with done with great _sangfroid_ , as if one tenured professor reclining all over another soon-to-be-tenured professor's lap were a common, ordinary , everyday occurrence, here at Hogwarts School for Witches and Wizards—and sod the morals and ethics of _that_.

"We're wasting your valuable working time, Draco, squabbling over time management," Harry remarked, apropos of all Draco's many beefs regarding same, multiply expounded upon previously. He adjusted Draco's chin—and thus, lips—via earlobe management. "Right. Let's not, then. Come _on_."

"Narrgg! Pot—terrrr! Stop that, you great bloody prat!"

Draco's eyes narrowed to evil slits and he glared nastily at the cheeky, scarred, green-eyed bundle of willful trouble sitting upon him, shapely arse pressing Draco's waistcoat buttons painfully into his washboard abdomen with merry impunity.

"You—you're doing this deliberately, aren't you?" the irate Wizard lashed out, adamantly refusing to budge an inch closer, no matter how Potter mistreated his ears. "Is that damned photographer Creevey the Younger here, lurking about? Or your pet Weasley—the bint you've been banging all these years? The one who spawned your litter? Or is it the one who's your freaking best mate, ever? Did _he_ put you up to this? Or was it poor Granger, finally exacting revenge? Pranking that git Malfoy or something like?"

Draco yelped all this furiously, all his hackles well-risen, like the short hairs on his nape—and his poor, silly, yearning hopelessly cock, trapped under Potter's flexing bum.

"You just _would_ , Potter—you damned well would, wouldn't you? You'd think this was some great and wonderful joke, getting me tipsy and stupidly foolish enough to try on a pass at you and then putting my sorry arse up for show in the papers! I know it—you've never liked me—never _once_!"

Harry's eyebrows disappeared under his now quite stylish fringe; his well-formed jaw dropped open. He gaped, frozen in place, for a short space of perhaps fifteen incredibly long, incredibly stiff and uncomfortably solid seconds.

Draco panted, near enough to tears of sheer fury that it made no never mind if he shed them—Potter would no doubt think that was that some great jest, too!

"Fucking idiot!" Harry breathed at last, awash in angry astonishment, and then watched with interest as Draco flushed beet red and visibly began reeling in his own volatile temper. "Fool, Draco!" he scolded. "You know me better than that! I'd never!"

"Er? Uh…ahem." Draco, iron will descending like a bloody final curtain, forced his fingers to unclench from Potter's upper arms and his uneven breathing to go steady and slow. He blinked at Potter's furious face, till the red tide in his head subsided enough to draw a clear, mind-clearing draught of oxygen. "Erm. Well...Potter. Sor—" he began, in an effort to apologize for his most recent Unforgiveable, but Harry cut him off in the midst.

"You know, you are the single most dense bloke I've ever even _met_ , Draco, especially for an supposed ex-Slytherin, without a doubt or a quibble. Whatever are you _thinking_ , Draco?" Harry demanded, his annoying grin completely absent. "Are _you_ thinking, at all? Wait—I've asked you that already, haven't I? Or did you ask me? It all sounds so familiar now, like deja vue; you've got me so befuddled, damn you! Fucking prat!"

"What? I am not a prat, Potter-take that back!" Draco retorted defensively, abruptly bewildered on a whole new level but still ably ignoring the warm weight that pressed him down hard into the seat cushion and had his buttons and flies digging in edgewise and evil-sharp on his all too interested dick.

This—this here— _this_ was exactly what he didn't need at the moment and exactly what he'd gone very far out of his path to avoid for years and years on end: Potter, in fine fettle, being hopelessly, endlessly fascinating, in an way that was completely unavoidable and woefully 'come hither' yet...too, in a depressingly 'Didn't really mean that, sorry!' sort of way, too.

"Merlin, Potter, you're so bloody confusing sometimes! Just shut _up_ , alright? Stop with this—this horrible silliness of yours and please do remove yourself from my lap while you're at it," Draco requested most sedately, having managed to sort himself at last...mostly. "You've had too much Ogden's, obviously," he added, with a sneer. "As have I."

Fortunately so, because that had been bloody too close a call.

No one knew nor even guessed at how much Draco Malfoy still felt for the git, all these many years later. If Draco had even one wish he desperately wanted Santa to grant, it was that it would remain thus till he was carried off to his well-earned grave—which, thanks to the Golden Git, would be entirely due to the ravages of random old age and not random Dark Lords. No one, not even that National Brainbank Granger, realized that Draco Malfoy toted a quite large torch, or that it flamed on, never quenched, all for the benefit of that bane of his personal existence and the Wizarding world's personal Hero—and every single Hogwart's student's favourite DADA professor: Potter. Harry Potter.

With a hiss of frustration, the Potter in question removed his grasping hands from Draco's neck, waved them in the air in a demonstration of sheer excess of ire and finally brought one down quite solidly on the desk behind them in a tense, hard fist.

Draco jumped in his chair at the resounding thump, which only glued Potter to him more tightly.

"You're a twat!" Potter advised him, quite clearly seriously miffed. Behind him, the desk creaked ominously. "A prick tease—a berk _and_ a sodding ninny, Draco Malfoy. This can't get much plainer, can it? Tell me you're not normally _this_ dull and obtuse? I pity your poor fucking students, if you are!"

Draco, further befuddled, as Potter promptly entwined his fingers securely round his nape again, tugging furiously, watched appalled as his newly restored work space underwent a seemingly improbable series of contortions, loudly accompanied by all manner of pops and creaks and other assorted wooden sound effects.

It stretched like glue, knocking his knees aside and bruising them. It twisted mid-air, like a falling feline, and sprouted a thick mattress and four posts. It sucked bedding out of the ether and wrapped itself in it-and there was no sign, not a single one, of his presentation for BIGCOC or his heirloom inkwell.

In the short space of a mere five seconds Draco was viewing the snowy expanse of not a tablecloth but a king-sized bed, fully garbed in white linens and a festive red-and-green striped satin coverlet. Piled high with tasseled pillows and swagged in Christmas colours, too, adding further insult to injury. Across the sagging canopy, compact balls of mistletoe, tied with Slytherin-green ribbons and bedecked with tinkling silvery bells, rolled endlessly past his bug-eyed vision, remarkably similar to those American sagebrush heaps of the fabled 'Old West'. Potter liked them, Draco knew—or the spaghetti-Western films they appeared in, iconically.

Draco winced, not regarding the green eyes glaring only an inch from his own nose. Of all the things to be considering , when he had the object of his long desire perched square on his thighs, squirming, Muggle film lore and related trivial factoids about Potter were not it—but _it_ , at least, was a much safer topic than what he longed to do to the git who'd just Vanished his presentation for a second time.

"Potter," he snarled, "you fucking arse! Put. It. Back!"

"Hah!" Potter announced happily, smiling hugely. "No! I won't! This is just perfect, Draco! Just exactly what I was aiming for—thanks so much, Castle!" And with that apparently illogical remark, he rolled them over and across the intervening empty space of approximately sixteen inches in an impossibly magical manner, hauling Draco with him by main force, till they both tumbled onto the Christmas-dressed bed in an ungainly, untidy heap of flailing limbs and flapping fabric.

"Ah!" Malfoy yelped. "Bollocks, Potter! What's going on? What d'you think you're doing, for the love of Merlin?" he demanded fiercely, finding himself flat on his back with Harry gleefully hovering over him, a very pointed leer now decorating that narrow, scarred face.

"Taking matters into my own two hands, Draco, I am. As you're both a blind prat and the greatest git ever and you simply don't seem to have a fucking clue, no matter what I do. Now…shall we?"

Potter proceeded to calmly resume unfastening both Malfoy's waistcoat and his snug collar and cuffs.

"Shall we what, Potter?" Draco questioned, attempting to fend the git off his work clothes with no success. "Eh? Have you run mad?"

"Be on the serious business of merriment, manually induced, Draco. Let's get to the nasty, right here, right now. Rent boy, git—remember? I repeat, for your eminent obliviousness—rent boy! Yours, twat. For the use of."

"Urgh," Draco gurgled, aghast. "You can't be serious, Potter!"

"Of course I'm serious, Draco. Why? Did you think I was not?"

Draco quite thought Potter must've been diving into the Ogden's well before he stopped in his office to bother Draco with unwanted tea. This couldn't be happening. This most definitely could _not_ be happening. It was, in fact, _not_ happening.

"Mental!" Draco exclaimed feebly. He put a hand up, waving it. "Help? Someone? Weasel—are you there, watching? A hand here?"

Potter went into gales of giggly snorts at that and could barely manage his unbuttoning and so forth with trembling fingers, after. But this was not at all reassuring—no.

Draco swallowed and stared blankly at the canopy of 'Kiss me, you fool!' vegetation trolling past.

_No_. Potter had never once showed any signs of any sort of sexual attraction toward Draco. Not once, to Draco's knowledge, had he even noticed the way Draco's eyes were perpetually dragged to his vicinity most unwillingly and predictably often nor the way Draco was generally left inexplicably breathless whenever they conversed over mundane things such as grading essays or effective practicums for the impossible Thirdies.

Draco knew he hid it well, all that he wanted—all that he felt; he counted on that, rather. Potter was mercurial and prone to practical joking. Which was that abominable Weasley's influence, no doubt, but then…when _ever_ had Draco had a sodding chance to influence Potter with his own quite sane and well-grounded attitude? _Never_! That's when!

He'd been shot down from the get-go and only tolerated after the war was over. For years, whilst they'd both been married, Potter had ignored him completely. Their contact, even as co-workers, was still quite minimal. He'd preferred it that way—or so Draco told himself. He wasn't a fool. He wasn't a dreamer.

"You—what _are_ you doing, Potter?"

"Taking off your trousers, dumb arse—what does it look like? Here, budge up."

Draco struggled to stay calm, cool and collected, even in this insane situation—rolling about on a Transfigured mattress in his own private office with sodding Potter, who was quite possibly either drunk or possessed! Well! _Bugger_ his Conference presentation and the Charm due to the Governors—bugger the papers piling up that still needed grading. _Bugger_ McGonagall's impossible expectations of him, too! This situation was infinitely more serious and likely to be quite, quite deadly—to his floundering peace of mind and his hard-won reputation for sensible, intelligent action.

"Er, could you stop now, Potter? I don't think you _really_ want to be doing this…please?"

"What? Are you mental, Draco? No bloody way I'm stopping now—sheesh!"

He'd done so much toward tamping down the passions he still felt coursing madly just below his carefully cultivated cool-to-the-touch surface, once the war had finally ended. He'd managed to squelch his lingering thoughts nearly altogether, by dint of stern concentration on his career and on his family's desperate need for solid, steady performance on the part of this unfortunate generation's heir to Malfoy name. He'd stuffed the impossible yearning deep within him and carried on slogging, obdurate: studying like a fiend, swotting up on all Flitwick's Charms notes, texts and lesson plans, earning his advanced degree via concerted effort in just the two years after NEWTS—and finally being hired at Hogwarts, with McGonagall's grudging but still genuine blessing.

And he'd stepped up, finally, to his own satisfaction. Become a fully-fledged Professor. Become a respectable man in an excellent position. Been a good son and a better father, even after the inevitable well-mannered divorce from his arranged bride, Astoria. Done all that Potter had done, and just as well as the git had—the teasing, troublesome effective git—better, sometimes, though he'd not crow over it, not now, and all in his own inimitable, irreproachable Malfoy style. He'd been bloody exemplary in bloody _everything_ , Draco had. A bleeding canonical saint, just like Potter.

If it was all a little flat and not quite as satisfactory as it could've been, Draco's personal successes and his many achievements, then it was no one's business but his own. He could manage with the almost expected let-down, the dulled sense of incompleteness that dogged his steps, just as he'd dealt with the pressures of bringing the Malfoy rep up to scratch again and producing his required heir in a polite and orderly manner.

His life didn't require that he be _happy_.

To be brutal, he'd firmly given up on the faintest possibility of happiness years ago, when Potter had gone ahead and married that horrid jealous bint Ginevra Weasley. What was the point of hoping, then?

"Draco," Potter interrupted his companion's unhappy trip down the byways of wretched Memory with yet more impertinence by pecking the tip of Draco's quivering nose, lips pursed curiously. Draco felt himself surgically examined by eyes of darkest green. "You look positively catatonic. Is this too much for you to take in? Are you too tired? Would you prefer we have a nap first and then go at it? I suppose I could wait a bit, if you're feeling ill."

"Gah," Draco replied hoarsely, eyes bugging out. "Go at it?" he added in a hushed whisper. He scowled at his assailant. "Who the hell ever said we were planning to 'go at it', Potter? And why in the name of all that's sacred are you still atop of me, destroying my garments? Where the fuck, Potter, is my desk—my report- my bloody favourite inkwell that Mum gave me when I landed this stupid position? And what, pray tell, are you actually doing to me, Potter? Have you lost your little tiny mind? Because you're frightening me, git!"

These questions seared through the intervening space just as demon fire through dry kindling. Draco could swear his heart was stuttering in his chest as he asked them, on its very last legs; he could feel the disturbed burble of it, and the shortness of breath caused by Potter's utterly incomprehensible gall. And worse yet—he could feel his cock, completely rigid and straining, and trapped between the thin layers of the winter woolies both he and Potter wore in a concession toward the cold stones of the castle.

And if he could feel it, then so must Potter…Potter.

"My gods, you're a dolt, Draco," Potter remarked conversationally. He resumed ripping off Draco's clothes with a vengeance, not even pausing, really.

"Need a good shagging," Potter added, as Draco gaped at him. "Set you to rights, that. Good for me, too. Blue balls, Draco—I've got them, you sod. All _your_ fault. Can't exactly go to Madame for that, now can I?"

Potter was oh, so warm and heavy atop him, Draco realized, sensation finally sinking in through the understandable daze. A bloody furnace that he wanted so much to immerse himself within, rather. Make of himself a voluntary immolation sacrifice to the great god Eros—he who burned and seethed and who happened, by great gobs of rotten ill luck, to be embodied within the person of this one particular irksome Wizard, Harry Potter.

"Bloody fuck!" Draco muttered miserably, gathering himself together, nonetheless. "I can't be doing this!"

They had to work together, he and Potter. It couldn't happen—not and allow for mutual professionalism. McGonagall would know, as she always knew everything. The Board would find them out and fire him instantly. He'd be publicly flayed for fu- _dallying_ with the Golden One. It didn't matter quite why a maniac Potter had decided to torture him with tea and sympathy, hot skin and flashing green eyes—and repeated mention of 'holiday rent boys', of all the absurd concepts—the point was to be rid of it before Draco gave himself away altogether and simply _took_. Trouble lay in simply reaching a hand out, not thinking.

He knew that, all too well.

"Get off me!"

Draco took the reins of his failing resolve and rolled over, pinning a wriggling Potter beneath him momentarily. He levered himself up on spread-wide hands and wobbly, uncertain knees, struggling for purchase on the springy mattress, firmly not looking into Potter's gleaming eyes or perfect mouth, nor gazing hungrily the length of his pale throat nor the stylish thatch of his silky black hair.

"Here, you. Please— _please_! Leave go, Potter! Up! Out! Be gone, foul tempter! I've work to do!"

Draco told himself all the while that the odour of pine tar was abhorrent—that it was completely unacceptable to shag a co-worker, or even assault one in passing due to too much alcohol imbibed in the early afternoon. That Potter was strictly unavailable to him, off-limits forever, and that was never, _ever_ going to change in his favour—not in his lifetime. He was so much better off simply maintaining his equilibrium and forging forward toward his career goals, just as he had been all this time—BIGCOC was coming up right smart and he'd a Charm due before that.

"Gotcha!" Potter grinned gamely and slipped a wrist free from where Draco had him pinned. With a jerk and gasp, Draco found his slightly parted lips had been summarily invaded, Potter arching up beneath him.

Potter was amazingly limber, really, for a man starting his thirties.

_Tongue, tongue, tongue_! Draco's happy id danced in glee— _fucking finally!—_ and put a damper on any higher thought process the very next second.

He fell stupidly off his own trembling arms, collapsing gratefully against Potter's frame. It was exactly like coming home.

Potter shifted, tumbling them, and they were suddenly side-by-side, fervent hands trailing down over ribcages and waists, sliding over hips, flanks and shoulder blades. Fingertips sifting through hair, all fumbly and trembling, and each set of eyelids lowered to half-mast and heavy with the drug of _Want_.

Draco breathed in when he remembered to, a reedy inhalation that might potentially gut him, in all its sharpness. He and Potter were sipping at one another's mouths as though they were each a fine, rare vintage, just decanted. Poised on the veriest knife edge between what cannot be and what could.

He so needed to have this moment—just once. One time.

Slowly, gently, with excruciating care and infinite gentleness, they touched just-parted lips, licking them between every glancing flash point of pressure; prodding with tentative tongues, oh, so carefully.

So very, very carefully, as if this new territory were riddled with hidden dangers. Holes they could fall in and be swallowed up by; gaps that could cause them to misstep and ruin the delicate work of art their joined mouths were building.

This marvelous structure, made of shared air and gasped words that dissipated half-spoken: 'always', 'forever and a bloody day', 'I wanted', 'I _needed_ ''.

You.

_Potter_.

"So much!" Harry growled, apparently on the same page as Draco, which _was_ a Christmas miracle all by itself. "You bloody git—you idiot man! Here I go, _well_ out of my way!" His lips were hot, hotter, and burning across Draco's, etching in deeper than the Mark ever had. "To fucking arrange this!" And that tongue was the most flexible muscle Draco had ever met on an intimate basis—and that was saying a great deal, and all of it brilliant. "Set it up so it's acceptable! So no one wil talk or even think to ask questions! Sweet-talking McGonagall into the idea; coming up with this whole damned scheme, just to maneuver close enough to you—you damnable, idiotic, oblivious SOB!"

"Nnn!' Draco nodded furiously, his brain turned quite firmly to the 'Off' setting. He wasn't hearing a word Potter babbled—yelled—and it didn't matter one whit. All the important shite being communicated was purely non-verbal, anyway.

"Twat, Draco! Dolt—dork—lamebrain! Who in the sweetest Hell _ever_ heard of a holiday rent boy, anyway?" Potter demanded, stroking Draco's teeth with his tongue. Draco's jaw ached with desire—the most curious sensation he'd ever felt, in all his thirty years. He'd not known bones could echo hearts.

"It's ridiculous! It's so stupid, I tell you!" Potter ranted, spluttering—snogging, always snogging, though.

"Nnn…" Draco groaned, and found the fascinating dark humid entry that was Potter's ear. "Yeah…whatever."

"But then," Harry carried on, mad as a hornet, "you're so fucking dimwitted any more, Malfoy—like a bloody wall! Where's your damned Slytherin when I need it? Huh?"

"Um."

Draco swallowed, still nodding ever so faintly, lapping away at Potter's mouth once more; suckling lower lips and nibbling at jawbone. Potter's taste was exquisite; his jaw as it moved in vituperative phrase was a thing of beauty. Draco had always thought so—really he had.

"Uh-huh, whatever you say, Potter," he managed to moan, and set himself to seducing Potter into blessed silence. "Stupid, dense, yeah—um-hmm, whatever…oh, Merlin! What _ever_!"

He could do homage much more effectively, he was sure, if Potter would just shut his gob. Or rather, open it politely and cease with the gabble.

"Git!" Potter huffed, and thankfully did that last thing, finally, so that Draco could snog him thoroughly—the way the git deserved, the exactingly careful method his thundering heart demanded.

"Ohhh, git!" Harry sighed, a moment later, when Draco latched onto a rose-brown nipple and sucked hard enough to bruise the aureole. " _That's_ what I wanted for Christmas—just that!"

"Hmmm?" Draco murmured, nosing his way down Potter's lean torso. "I can do that, Potter—you only had to say."

That this was patently untrue was ignored by the both of them. They'd a decade's worth of unfulfilled Christmas wishes to catch up on, after all, and very little actual time to do it in. Fortunately, Harry was most definitely available. He was a rent boy, after all, and paid in the currency of flesh, by the hour.

And sometime soon—or sometime later, depending—Draco had a paper to complete for BIGCOC and a Charm to perfect for the pisspots who called themselves the Governors of Hogwarts (including his own damned father!), and Potter would have to Transfigure his desk back to normal so he could do these terribly crucial things.

But not now.

**Fin. Happy Holidays! &hearts**


End file.
